INTRO
 
Welcome to CHAPTER 36 of the Kinsmen Die podcast, home of fantasy fiction based on Norse mythology that’s written and read by me, Matt Bishop.

In this podcast I read my first novel, Kinsmen Die, one chapter at a time. And, with each episode, when it makes sense, I provide some commentary about the source materials I’ve referenced in the text.

Today, we’re back with Odin. We’d last left him speaking with the Norns at the base of Yggdrasil. It had been a frustrating conversation for him. The Norns had refused to answer his questions so, when he finally lost his cool and got uppity, they used magic to knock him ass over teakettle.

And that’s where we find him now…boiling over. 


Let’s do this.

Chapter Thirty-Six
Odin
Odin slammed against the soft green grasses and rolled, moths scattering from his path. He leaped to his feet and called Gungnir to his hands. She settled in, a familiar weight. Chest heaving, he crouched in the glade, his sight dim and red around the edges. But Gungnir’s tip was sharp and clear, the bright smile of her long blade a promise.
Thoughts swam through that red haze like darting, silvery fish. Go back... Teach them some respect... Kill them where they stand.
But atop the waves, a seabird bobbed, the waves passing under it, their red weight smashing against the shores of his mind. He focused on the seabird. She rose, she sank, the red wave rolled beneath her, she rose again, sank again, an endless succession of waves. He fought his way up through the heaving waters, filling his chest to float beside the bird. When she rose, he did. When she sank, he did. The pounding in his ears receded, the red haze drew back, and calm returned.
He stood straighter and looked down at himself: grass stains on his knees and elbows, wet streaks across his armor, clumps of grass crushed into its seams and angles. Laughter bubbled up, surprising him. At first, he thought it was the Urdarbrunnr gurgling behind him, but then it grew into a normal, hearty laugh like the one he’d shared with Frigg before falling asleep beside her last night.
And with the thought of his wife, fleeting though it was, the last of his fury receded like seawater from the shore. He released Gungnir, brushed off his knees and elbows, and walked the few paces to Urdarbrunnr.
He sat on the well’s low rim, wet though it was, and dipped the silver platter in. He raised it to his face and drank some of the water, pure and cold.
He began plucking out the bits of grass stuck in his armor. He flicked them away while the water in the well burbled and hissed.
When he finished, he reached out to Freki and Geri.
Have the others begun to arrive?
No, came Freki’s response. You are well? We wanted to help, but obeyed.
I’m fine. Just the clucking of hens. Stay there. I’ll be along shortly.
He reached again for the ewer and filled it with the well’s cold water. With the silver ewer in his hands, he walked to where Yggdrasil rose like a wall from the green grasses—a portion not near where the Norns worked.
He emptied the ewer on the tree, the bark darkening as it grew wet. He brushed his free hand along the tree, the rough bark snagging on his skin, as he stared upward, searching for more rot. Yggdrasil was everywhere—to each side and above—craning his head back he grew dizzy, he felt like he clung to the tree, as once he’d done, until remembered pain stabbed him in the side. That pain blossomed beneath his right armpit and spread diagonally through his chest, just as that ancient spear had poked through his ribs before emerging from his other side. 
Fool.
He staggered back, left hand pressed against his ribs, trying to force away the memory. He felt again the spear’s smooth wood inside him even as he slumped against Yggdrasil’s rough bark. He’d been so high in the tree, having flown on eagle’s wings until he had found the right place for his sacrifice, himself to himself.
In his mind’s eye, the dark expanse in which Yggdrasil grew shattered beneath his feet. And then, impossibly, he was falling through it, plunging into the Ginnungagap—the void where blazing sparks rose, hot from Muspellheim’s fires, to mix with the ice falling, always falling, from Niflheim’s chill mists. Where those two mixed, Hvergelmir churned around and around, like a cauldron stirring itself. From that avalanche roar, eleven mighty rivers poured forth.
Even in this memory he was again lifted higher on a wave that would never crest or break. He remembered his screams, ragged, hoarse, and almost unending, tearing from his throat just as the living rivers erupted from Hvergelmir. He remembered the patterns forming like the interlinking branches of trees, of roots, till he lost sight of them as they sank back into the mists and darkness surrounding that roaring cauldron. He memorized those patterns, those secrets, those hot spikes of fire and ice and pain. He named them runes and, with hands bloody and slick from driving the spear through his side—the spear that pinned him to life and to death—he again reached out and, shrieking, took up the runes.
 
***
 
Back at the well, Odin splashed cold water on his face, spilled it down his neck and chest, until it took his breath away, froze his hands and numbed his face. 
He stared down past his reflection, his face distorted by the clear, rippling water, to count the rows of cut stones from which the well was made. And count he did, the numbers giving him something to think about other than the dull throb in his chest or the memory of what lay beneath, above and around Yggdrasil.
At twenty-seven rows down, pain’s sharp spear in his side withdrew. Calm returned at forty-five; his shoulders no longer ached. At fifty-six, he remembered the chisel jumping in his hand as he worked the stone for this well.
At sixty-three, he cocked an attentive ear. Was that a voice?
He held his breath and listened harder. Beneath the faint gurgle and slap of water on the wide well’s walls, he thought he’d heard—yes, there it was again. A voice from below, calling out to him.
That was not possible.
He closed his eyes.
There it was again. A sibilance from the depths, calling to him.
Without thinking, he sent his spirit out on his exhaled breath so that it swam downward through the cold, clear water. The voice was more distinct now that his spirit was outside his body. It was stronger, as if his flesh and bones had kept the voice away like stout walls providing shelter from a biting wind.
Come, the voice whispered. Swim, it encouraged.
Curious, he dove deeper still, pushing harder against the upwelling waters.
It reminded him of his youth, when he’d swum with his brothers in the many lakes and rivers that had vanished when the world broke after Ymir’s death. His old homeland had been as warm and welcoming as a lover’s arms after a hard-fought battle while this glade at Yggdrasil’s feet was akin to a sword’s blade at dawn, weeping with the dew.
His spirit might have wept with the warm memory of playing with his brothers, learning to hunt from his father, watching his mother cook their kills. Perhaps most of all, the feeling of Audhumbla’s hot breath on his face and his own laughter when her coarse tongue licked him. His father, Burr, had called that cow Grandmother.
His spirit might have wept with joy had those happy memories not been eclipsed by the shadow that had fallen too often across his youthful fields. He remembered that ancient giant who, looming over his father and mother, too often made them cringe. He remembered the hot words exchanged, his father’s last cry, and the snow hissing as it boiled away beneath all the blood spilled that day.
His spirit might have wept not in grief but in fury when, on that distant day, he and his brothers had stood over what remained of the bodies of their parents. Even now, with all he’d seen and done, his mind shied from what Ymir had done not just to them, but to Grandmother.
Yes, he had wept, first with grief and horror, but then the rage had come and burned all that out of him. He’d called the strongest disir to him. She’d filled him like a flood filled a dry lake. Then he’d bound her to him with his new-won runes and made her his fylgja. Back then, she had brought all the fury and clarity of a river breaking its banks. For a time, he’d ceased to be completely himself. He’d been a leaf swept up in the disir’s flood until, eventually, she exhausted herself and he found himself again.
No, he wouldn’t weep. Not again. Never again. Not for anything. His last tears had fallen on his parents’ cooling bodies.
And had he known what would come after he killed Ymir, he still would have done it.
What’s that, little father? No regrets for your first murder, the one that started it all? The sibilance uncoiled from the depths, flickering into his mind. Sing, then, for I was born that day.
Had his spirit hackles, they would have raised. Had it flesh, it would have prickled.
In an instant, he saw the silvery net into which his spirit had been lured. He saw its edges closing like a noose. He’d been lured from his body and drawn within a place he’d only ever seen from a distance.
With a flick of what would have been a tail, were he a fish, he fled back up the well—just fast enough that he slipped free of the net. Faster he swam, back up the well’s waters, until he cried out in pain through physical lips. He fell back from the well’s edge to land, gasping and dazed, in the thick grass.
A shadow fell across his chest. He scrambled up, then realized it was Gungnir standing tall beside him. Had he called to her? She flickered into his outstretched hands. He lowered her tip, facing the well as he might a Jotunn shield wall.
“Who spoke?” he shouted, his voice loud in the glade.
At first, only silence answered him. That and the incessant, faint scratch-scratch-scrape of the Norns’ tools on Yggdrasil’s bark.
Pack-Father, we come!
No, Freki. No, Geri. Stay. I don’t know what I face. I’ll call if I need you. Be ready.
Water bubbled and popped in the well before him, slapping and rasping against its stone sides. A thrill rushed through him. He shuffled forward, spear tip poised, his entire body tense.
“Stand forth!” he shouted.
No response, save the slap of water on stone.
He waited several pounding heartbeats and then shuffled forward again till he was at the well’s rim. He shifted Gungnir high, ready to thrust down into the water. Only his reflection in the rippling water stared back at him.
But s omething was down there.
“I know all the creatures who shelter beneath these wide branches,” he said. “Ratatoskr and the eagle. Heidrun and the four harts, always hungry. What manner of—”
Ah, but you don’t know them all, especially if you don’t know me, hissed the voice from the well’s depths. Come back. Visit me and mine, little father. I’ll introduce you.
“Visit a serpent in its den? I don’t think so. If you know me, then you know how I deal with serpents.” His arm tensed, but Gungnir didn’t waver. “Come out, instead, and face me rather than hiss words from the cold dark.”
I won’t be as easy to deal with as Loki’s son.
“Then you are serpent, eh?” he replied, smiling. “But less subtle.”
If I were, then what shame would that be? You’ve taken that shape before. Poor Gunnloth. While she lived, her shame was like nectar.
He lowered Gungnir and stepped back a pace. How did this thing know about that? Thoughts raced like horses before the cart of his rising anger. Perhaps a change of tactics?
“You know me, spirit, and have somehow followed my deeds. Come out and let us speak as men. Face-to-face.”
A moment passed without response. Still the water popped and bubbled, and still the faint scratch-scratch-scrape of the Norns reached his ears.
“Or can you not face me? See, I release my spear.” He opened his hand, and Gungnir swayed back into the shadows. He spread his arms wide. “I am unarmed. Don’t be afraid.”
The voice that rose from the well carried the hint of a smile. No, little father, I am not afraid. But if you knew me, your knees would tremble.
Odin  sneered and waved a hand. “If, if, if... I haven’t been afraid since Ymir loomed high above me. He was a true terror. And yet here I stand, his killer. I ask a second time: come forth and speak with me, spirit.”
And I invite you again. Come back down. Visit me and mine.
“Oh, I think not. I’ve not traveled into that darkness beneath Yggdrasil. Were I to go now, knowing that some spirit lurks there, I would bring my sons and daughters.”
So you fear facing me alone? You must, having fled so quickly. I didn’t think a coward lurked inside you.
He laughed. “Name calling? I think that perhaps you cannot meet me here. So a spirit is all you are? Or maybe it’s just that you fear me. Is that it?”
It is not yet time for us to meet, little father.
“Then why did you call to me and try to trap me?” He stepped closer to the well. “No, I think that you cannot meet me here.”
The Norns have decreed the time of our meeting. We may converse, but to meet, face-to-face? Not yet. The current carried what might have been a touch of anger.
He laughed. “So I’m right, you did try to lure me down there. Clever, trying to circumvent the doom scratched by those women. But let me tell you something about the Norns, spirit. They’re hens in a yard, scratching and scraping, thinking that all world ends at their fence. So they rebuff those who come with honest need and intent. More power in secrecy and vague words—easier to claim they were right regardless of what actually happens.”
Hens? No, little father, what the Norns write is what will be, what has been, and what is becoming. Those scratchings bind you as completely as the runes you use to enthrall others. They bind us all.
“Nothing binds me,” he said. “Where were the Norns when my brothers and I slew Ymir? Where were they when I led the Aesir to Asgard and fought the Vanir for the land above? No, I make my own doom.”
Why not ask them?
“Ask them what?”
Where they were, before.
“I have. They avoid answering, just as you do. Do you know why? Because they didn’t exist. Maybe Ymir shat them out before he died. Or maybe they crawled, wriggling like maggots, from his flesh. Perhaps that’s where you came from.”
The voice did not reply. Had that barb pricked flesh?
He stepped back from the rim of the well. “I’m tired of this, spirit. I have business elsewhere, and you’ve kept me too long from it.”
Wait, little father. You asked why I drew you to me? I bring a warning. Hold your council and chart your course, but it means nothing. Your doom is set. As is the doom of all your children. I have read them all in Yggdrasil’s bark.
He snorted. “That’s not much of a warning. What doom is set for me and mine? Why is it set? And by whom? If you mean the Norns—”
They’ve been right before.
“Have they? True, we avoided one doom but caused another—which they didn’t warn us about. I’ve come to wonder why that is.”
If you doubt them, then why ride down alone, ahead of your family, to question them?
He shrugged. “When I go sailing into unfamiliar waters, I seek those who’ve sailed them before.”
So you admit the Norns see more than you can.
“So does the man who climbs the mast and sights land before those astride the planks do. Another may do the same—and if he climbs a taller mast, he’ll see still farther.”
But the distant land is the same, regardless.
“It’s not a perfect metaphor, spirit. If you imply that the Norns’ prophecies always come true, then you and I disagree.” He turned and began to walk away.
Your death yawns like a wolf’s hungry jaws, as does the death of your sons and your wife, and all you—
“Rán’s nets will catch all the Aesir before that ever happens, little voice.” He threw a laugh back over his shoulder and kept walking. “Go away, or come forth.”
The column of water sizzled as it struck him, blackening the grass and knocking him down in the roar of a crashing wave. It flowed around him so that he drifted with it, his entire body burning with the water’s touch. His leather armor smoked as if a snow bear had spat venom on it.
He twisted his head to look back. The water rose from the well in a waterspout. It gripped him in a fist stronger than the ebbing tide and dragged him back toward the gray stones.
I told you, it is not yet time for me to venture into the realms. You can join me here, though. That is unwritten.
Odin fought the water’s pull and struggled to his feet, calling Gungnir to his hand and leaning into her to brace himself. Once he was steady, he swung the spear through the water pulling at him. Golden light exploded where Gungnir struck. The watery limb lost its form and parted with a pop. He staggered backward and nearly fell.
Another column of water whipped out and coiled around his leg.
Come, little father. Come down and meet my children.
The water gnawed at him, hissing and burning the bare skin of his face and hands. His vision went red as he drew on his fylgja’s strength. With another roar, he cut this new coil. Then, staying balanced and low, knees bent, he shuffled toward the well even as a new thick coil of water reformed. Gungnir was out in front of him, her tip bright and steady.
The single coil split into a dozen or more watery limbs that lashed out at him. He dodged, spinning Gungnir in quick arcs that blew apart, in flashes of golden light, whatever seidr animated the tentacles.
The flattened grass where he fought was wet and blackened. His soaked armor and clothes weighed on him. His flesh sizzled. The pain grew maddening. The red edges of his vision grew thicker and thicker the more he drew on his fylgja’s strength. Conscious thought receded.
The long watery arms were everywhere. He sliced through one coil around his leg only to find another pair of tentacles wrapping around his upper arms. He whirled Gungnir up, blasted through those coils, then brought her blade lower to sever the arm wrapping around his waist.
He pulled still harder on his fylgja’s strength, and his vision narrowed until his entire world was dodging, ducking, striking, getting struck, and getting burned and burned again.
He backed away, trying to gain distance. But the thing below the well changed tactics, hammering blows like Jotunn clubs against his chest and back and thighs, deadening his muscles and staggering him. The water flowed down his neck, delivering burns on top of scalds.
  A club of water struck his knees from the side, and he fell. The thing began to drag him skidding across the seared grass. He jabbed Gungnir against the gray stones of the well to stop his slide. He levered himself up and, like a drowning sailor on a lifeline, hauled on his fylgja's strength.
 More water blasted into his face; the glade vanished behind a red wall of pain.

OUTRO
Well, folks, that was CHAPTER 36 of Kinsmen Die. I hope you enjoyed it. 

We were with Odin as he cooled off, remembered some of his escapades, and then got involved in an altercation with something in or beneath the well.

There’s a great deal myth-wise that’s going on in this chapter. Virtually all of it is spoiler related so I’m not going to say much about any of it…not yet, at least.

Next week, we’re back with Frigg.

Before then, if you have the time and inclination, please take a few moments to rate and/or review the podcast — that provides valuable feedback for me and helps boost the show’s visibility. As does sharing it.

And if you’re so inclined, shoot me an email at mattbishopwrites@gmail.com.

I’d love to hear from you.
  
As always, I’m going to read from the Havamal, sayings of the High One, Odin himself.

As usual, I’ll be reading from Bellows and Larrington. 

Bellows, Verse 36

Better a house, though a hut it be,
A man is master at home;
A pair of goats and a patched-up roof
Are better far than begging.

Larrington, Verse 36
A farm of your own is better, even if small, everyone’s someone at home;
though he has two goats and a twig-roofed room, that is still better than begging.

Thanks for listening.